


i'll take anything you wanna give me

by sergeantwinter



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 11:31:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17446139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sergeantwinter/pseuds/sergeantwinter
Summary: The boy behind him sucks in a breath, mutters, “God, what did they do to you on that ship?”That’s enough to make Keith shake off his hold and turn around, confusion and anger and fear roiling in his stomach. “What ship? Who are you?”Hurt flashes in those blue eyes, plain and bright. “Keith, it’s me.” The pronoun hangs in the air for a few seconds, untouched, before he directs his words past Keith’s head.  “What happened to him?”**When Keith is captured by the Galra, he loses all his memories from the last few years - all his memories of Voltron, his friends, his relationship with Lance. Will Voltron survive with a Keith they don't know? Will he and Lance learn to love each other anew, or will his missing past drive a rift between them?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Mitski's song 'Old Friend'

“Five more minutes.” Lance mumbles into Keith’s shoulder, voice heavy with sleep.

Keith sighs. “You know we won’t be ready in time for the briefing,” he counters, but nevertheless begins to drag his fingers through Lance’s hair, a sure-fire way to lull him back to sleep. “This happens every morning.”

“Then you should be used to it by now. Stop complaining.” Lance’s breath is warm against Keith’s skin, a comforting rhythm, so Keith indulges him for a few minutes. It amazes him how quickly Lance takes to sleep, his brain switched off the moment his head hits the pillow (or Keith’s chest in most cases). Keith would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy these moments, the chance to study Lance without judgement*: the way his eyes move beneath his eyelids as they track the figures in his dreams, the fact that his hair smells like coconuts, or to simply bask in the knowledge that Lance feels safe enough to be so vulnerable in Keith’s arms.

The alarm clock by the bed beeps again, making Lance groan as he’s pulled back into the realm between sleep and lucidity. Keith presses a quick kiss to his temple before rolling Lance off him and heading towards the bathroom. “If Allura yells at us I’m telling her it’s your fault.”

“Allura would never,” Lance says as he follows. “I’m her favourite.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Keith chucks a towel, earning an indignant squeak as it hits Lance in the face. “You can have first shower.”

“Such a gentleman.”

Keith was right: they don’t make it to the briefing in time. What with Lance singing almost an entire Broadway show in the shower and Keith leaning against the bathroom counter listening instead of getting ready himself, by the time they arrive in the control room Allura is about twenty doboshes deep into her speech, hand gliding animatedly through the hologram before her.

Her eyebrows pull down in irritation as they enter. “Nice of you two to join us.”

“Sorry, Allura, but somebody,” Lance begins, pulling away from Keith to stand next to Allura, arms crossed over his chest, “insisted on an extra five minutes in bed this morning.”

Keith sticks his tongue out at Lance. Betrayed by his own boyfriend. “Did we miss anything important?”

“Everything in these briefings is important; I'm sure you don’t need another lecture.” Keith nods in assent, trying his best to look sheepish as Allura gestures to the hologram again, a map of their quadrant. “We’ve picked up on a broadcast from the planet Solivaan. A few single-pilot Galra ships were spotted just outside the planet’s atmosphere, but they made no attempt to land.” With a sweep of her hand the map rotates. “This planet, about half a varga away, produces a vital component for repairing the ship. We’ll need to make a stop.”

Keith nods, looking to Shiro as he begins to speak. “Keith, Pidge: you check out the distress signal. Lance, Hunk and I will go pick up the materials. Meet in the hangar in ten.” Keith watches fondly as Lance high fives Hunk before bounding back over to Keith.

“Hell yeah, Lance and Hunk –”

“– the dream team,” Keith finishes, the corner of his mouth twitching up as Lance’s pushes into a pout.

“I was going to say I’ll miss you on the mission but I just changed my mind.”

Keith nudges his shoulder against Lance’s. “It'll only be a couple hours.”

Lance’s voice is soft as he answers, “I know.”

They walk the rest of the way to their room in silence. Long gone are the days when Keith’s stomach would swirl with panic at the thought of being separated from Lance, when he could barely tear his gaze away as they changed into their armour for fear that it would be the last time. He can’t help himself, however, from pressing his lips to the notch at the top of Lance’s spine before zipping up his suit and turning him around and kissing him properly, one last private intimacy before they re-join their fellow paladins.

“Knock ‘em dead, babe!” Lance yells before climbing into the blue lion, and Pidge audibly scoffs over the comms.

“You heard back from the Olkari yet, Pidge?” Keith asks, feeling Red rumble to life around him. Exhilaration bubbles in his chest as he exits the castle, Red gliding smooth through space, the stars stretched out invitingly before him, breathtaking even after so many years. Galaxy Garrison prepared him for many things, but never this.

“Ryner sent a message this morning actually! Now that they're part of the coalition, they're working on medical technology that can be transported to other planets to help the wounded.” Keith grins as Pidge explains the intricacies of combining plant matter with different species, clearly already forming ideas of their own. “Allura says we should be able to visit Olkarion in the next few months, there’s another planet nearby that she wants to recruit, which is great because I've been working on…”

Keith is drawn from the sound of her voice by beeping in front of him, his lion in detectable range of movement. There’s a red blip on his screen. “Pidge, hold up. We’re not in range of the planet’s atmosphere yet, right?”

“No.” A pause; a few more blips from Red’s system. “But we’re already encountering ships.”

“Let me go ahead.” Some of Keith’s trepidation must leak into his voice because Pidge doesn’t fight him, instead bringing Green to halt just in front of him. Keith slows Red to a crawl, but even as he inches forward more red blips appear on his screen, congealing into a mass. The whole planet is infested, crawling with Galra ships. They’d been anticipating a handful of fighters at most, but it looks like the entire empire is congregated around Solivaan.

“It’s a trap,” he breathes, barely audible. He clicks his helmet, accessing the group-wide comms channel. “It’s a trap!” Louder this time, voice cracking, and even through the panic rising like steam from a kettle Keith’s immediate thought is of Lance, his dorky impression of that guy  from Star Wars (“How have you never seen Star Wars, Keith? You love space!”), an impression that he does almost every sparring session, feigning defeat just so that Keith will press him into the mat and kiss him.

Shiro’s voice is firm in his ear. “Keith, tell us what’s happening.”

“There are hundreds of ships here. They knew we’d split up if we thought the threat was minimal.”

“Shit,” Shiro breathes and Keith can't help but chuckle. Understatement of the deca-phoeb. “Don’t engage unless you have to. We’re on our way.”

“Copy.” Keith says but the order is rendered unless as a series of aggressive beeps emanate from Red’s control panel. “Pidge, we’ve got incoming. Stay close.” He doesn’t wait for her assent before swooping downwards, towards the stragglers moving in their direction. He dodges their shots with ease, firing his own cannon as Pidge flits between them. The fighters they destroy are almost immediately replaced by new ones, a steady barrage, but they're easy to take down and suspicion settles over Keith like a blanket.

“Why aren’t they attacking us?” Pidge calls over the sound of her laser, taking out three ships in a row. “We’re completely outnumbered!”

“I don’t know!” Three more ships fly into Keith’s peripheral. “Try not to move forward too much; make them come to us.” Pidge shoots forward, closer to the ships they’re shooting, no doubt trying to see if the Galra have stepped up their tech.

The answer comes moments later. Keith is trying to draw the ships away from the mass, away from the planet, when something collides with his lion’s belly and sends him reeling, colliding with two Galra fighters. Just as Keith rights himself it happens again, the force of the hit punching the breath out of Keith. His knuckles are turning white around the controls.

“Pidge!” he gasps. “Where is that coming from?”

“I think they have cloaking devices. The smaller ships are to keep us occupied so they can catch us off-guard.”

Keith swears under his breath. “Okay. I’ll cover you, try and –” Another hit interrupts his sentence, and another, hard enough to put a dent in the cockpit floor mere meters from Keith’s chair. Holy shit. Keith’s helmet crackles but he doesn’t give Shiro the chance to speak. “Shiro, hurry up, they’ve got cloaking devices and something’s – agh!” It’s all Keith can do to hold on as the hits intensity, shaking his lion like a ragdoll.

“Pidge, go find the others!”

“Are you crazy?! I’m not leaving you here!”

“It’ll be worse if they get two lions!”

“You said to stay close!”

“Just go!” Keith grunts as a shot connects with the lion’s jaw and dislodges him from the pilot’s chair. “Go!” He thinks he can hear Pidge screaming his name but he can't reply, can't even open his eyes. The arms of his chair are slick with sweat, or blood, he can't tell, but as the lion tumbles sideways he finds himself slipping, scrabbling for purchase against thin air before the stars disappear.

 

 

***

 

 

When consciousness tugs gently at the edges of his mind Keith can hear voices, fuzzy and low like a radio tuned in between stations.

“…not long now. Should…”

“….needs rest…”

It hurts to concentrate, to focus on the sounds but Keith screws his eyes up and listens hard.

“…sleeping for a week. How much better is he going to get?”

Sleeping for a week? That’s the dream. Even now Keith is tired, raw with exhaustion that he can feel in his bones. His head is heavy and his arms hang useless by his sides but he forces his eyes open, squinting against the bright light that fragments like a kaleidoscope between his lashes.

“Fine. Open healing pod one.”

A hissing sound and then he’s tipping forward, the light suddenly harsher as he tries in vain to get his limbs to move, the instinct to brace his palms against the fall terrifyingly absent. He opens his mouth – to speak, to scream, who knows – but a pair of arms wrap around him before any sound can escape. His head lolls back and he’s staring into sharp blue eyes.

“Case of the old healing pod knees, huh?”

Something about that voice sends a wave of déjà vu through him, a memory flaring dully at the back of his brain. Steadily he’s regaining feeling, the haze clearing, and he’s increasingly aware that this boy is _cradling_ him, one hand curled around his bicep and the other cradling his neck like a newborn baby. With a jolt of panic he pushes away, taking a few shaky steps back in order to take in his surroundings. The room is white, clinical – a hospital then, but Keith isn’t injured. Aside from the boy there are only two other people in the room: a strikingly beautiful (and tall) woman clad in pink and white armour, and a man, dressed entirely in black with a scar over his nose and a white tuft of hair and –

Keith feels like he’s been punched as he reels around, prevented from falling by hands around his waist – why does this boy keep catching him – but this time he doesn’t move away, grateful for something grounding because this can't be real, has to be a cruel trick by his subconscious. Keith must look like a deer in headlights because Shiro – _Shiro_ – steps towards with his hands slightly raised, palms outwards. “Keith, you're safe. You're back in the castle; you’ve been in the healing pod for a week.”

“You're not supposed to be here. You're – you're dead. They said you were dead.”

The boy behind him sucks in a breath, mutters, “God, what did they do to you on that ship?”

That’s enough to make Keith shake off his hold and turn around, confusion and anger and fear roiling in his stomach. “What ship? Who are you?”

Hurt flashes in those blue eyes, plain and bright. “Keith, it’s me.” The pronoun hangs in the air for a few seconds, untouched, before he directs his words past Keith’s head.  “What happened to him?”

“Keith,” Shiro steps closer, hands still up, and now Keith takes him in; he has a metal arm. He has the sinking feeling that he missed something big while he was asleep. “The Galra took you prisoner on Solivaan. Do you remember what they did to you?”

Keith shakes his head, and then it’s the woman’s turn to speak, her voice high and authoritative. “Keith, what’s the last thing you remember before waking up?”

Keith can't drag his gaze away from Shiro’s arm, tracing the seams in the plating, following up until it disappears beneath his vest. “I was in the desert. I was following energy signals –”

“Wait, wait, wait,” the boy interrupts. “The desert?”

“Keith,” Shiro says. “You said I'm supposed to be dead. Who told you that?” His voice is too soft, too quiet, and Keith is suddenly stricken with the thought that he’s fading away, that maybe Keith is just dreaming. Panic swells inside him as he grabs Shiro’s forearm, the metal unyielding beneath his bruising grip.

“It was on the news. You and the Holts… the Kerberos mission…” His voice is shaking, and he knows that if he were to let go his hands would be shaking too. “Shiro, you’ve been gone for months. I thought you were _dead._ What’s happening?”

Shiro doesn’t answer, his mouth pulled tight. Instead he wraps his arm, the flesh one, around Keith’s shoulders and pulls him tight against his chest. The metal arm and his own hand press uncomfortably into his stomach but Keith doesn’t care, only knows that it’s more places to feel that Shiro is alive, and here.

Keith didn’t cry when Shiro left, naively trusting in Shiro’s assurances that he’d be back before Keith knew it. He still didn’t cry when it was reported that Shiro was missing in action, or when he was kicked out of the Garrison a few weeks later. All that time in the desert, battling hunger and cold and loneliness, he’d never once broken. And maybe it was the too-bright room or the weight of the sad eyes or the warm hand on his neck, but Keith couldn’t hold back anymore. Pain that Keith doesn’t have a name for washes over him, waves cresting in his eyes as tears spring forward in an uncontrollable torrent. Keith doesn’t know how long he stands there, sobbing and clutching at the back of Shiro’s shirt, but by the time he pulls away the woman is gone. The boy is still there, his eyes puffy and red. Placing a hand on the small of Keith’s back, he says “You should get some sleep.”

“Lance is right,” Shiro says, finally giving the boy a name. “Come on, Keith.” Shiro holds out his hand like a parent beckoning a child and Keith takes it, unsettled by the feeling of something so familiar amongst all this confusion.


	2. Chapter 2

The room is sparse but uncomfortably personal nonetheless. Keith’s jacket hangs over the back of the chair, and the bed had been unmade when Shiro had first opened the door, just like he always left it at home. _Home._ What did that word mean? Keith had never thought of the shack as his home, just a roof to shield from the unyielding dark of desert nights, but now he’d give anything to be back in the safety of the known. He pulls the blankets neatly over the mattress before turning to face the rest of the room.

The desk is covered in trinkets, many of which Keith can't name. He and Shiro had walked in silence, the desire for answering obscured by fatigue; this room generates more questions than answers. Keith explores cupboards, drawers, the bathroom, a guilty feeling settling in his stomach as he discovered more unexplainable objects. The wardrobe, at least, is familiar. It’s only once he changes that he feels an ache that seems to reach his bones, like the skin-tight was holding him together. He pulls his jacket from the chair and slips it on – it smells different.

Gingerly he sits on the bed, surveying the room once more. He can't call the room his. A glimmer above the bed catches his eye – two photos are stuck there. One is of him and Shiro, with Shiro ruffling his hair. It was taken at the garrison when they were younger. Before Shiro disappeared. The second is of him and the boy – Lance – with their cheeks pressed together, goofy grins stretching their mouths wide.

That boy means something to Keith. Or Keith means something to him. That boy is going to give him answers, whether he wants to or not.

 

The corridors in this place are labyrinthine, twisting every which way and leading Keith past a myriad of rooms, all devoid of people. Later he wants to explore these rooms, learn their purpose, but for now he has a mission. Eventually he hears voices from further down the corridor.

“He really doesn’t remember anything?” says a deep voice, male, one he doesn’t recognise.

“He was surprised to see Shiro. He didn’t even recognise me.” Keith recognises this voice, registers the strain in it. “They fucked with his mind somehow. They know we can't form Voltron like this.”

“It could just be memory loss. He must have hit his head pretty hard; you saw the state of Red.”

“But isn’t it convenient that he only forgot Voltron? The last thing he remembers is being in the desert.”

“Regardless of what happened, Lance is right.” It’s the woman from before. “If the Galra attack now, we’ll be finished. I'm just as worried about Keith as the rest of you, but we can't help him if we’re all killed. We need to move the castle somewhere safe We need to move the castle somewhere safe until we figure out how to fix him.”

The last two words are still digesting in Keith’s head, the implications numerous, when another new voice speaks, nasal and childlike. “We should go to the Olkari. We know their planet’s safe and they might be able to help us figure out what happened to Keith’s memory.”

“Good idea, Pidge.” Shiro’s voice. “How far from the Olkari are we, Princess?”

“Once we wormhole to their sector it should be no more than two quintants.”

“Aright. In the meantime, everyone should get some sleep. This is a tough situation and I need you all to stay sharp. Lance, I know this must be hard for you but understand that it’s harder for Keith. He’s woken up in space with two years of his life missing, surrounded by strangers. Try to give him some space to process.”

That’s when Keith bails, darting through the hallways with no real direction, just needing space between him and past-him, the version of him that lives only in these people’s memories. His legs are going to give out at any moment so he slides down to the floor, puts his head between his knees and breathes deep. Eventually the ground feels solid beneath him again and Keith looks up, takes in his surroundings. The walls are unassuming, no doors leading to strange rooms like the ones Keith had seen on his search for answers. He can’t even remember which way he came from, and the idea of fruitlessly wandering the hallways becomes less and less appealing as lethargy settles over his limbs once again. Maybe he can just close his eyes for a minute…

Keith wakes with a jolt as a hand gently shakes his shoulder. Lance is crouched before him, his tired eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiles at Keith. “Hey, sleepyhead. What are you doing here?”

“I, uh, got lost.”

“No shit,” Lance replies as he moves to sit next to Keith. Their arms are touching and Keith scoots over a little to break the contact. “I went to your room to check on you but it was empty. Figured you’d wandered off somewhere.” Keith turns to look at Lance; his head is tipped back against the wall and his eyes are half-lidded. “God knows how many times I got lost when we first came to the castle.”

“How long have you been here?”

“About a year and a half, if I had to guess.” He slides his gaze over to Keith. “I stopped keeping track after the first month.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like thinking about how long we’ve been gone.” He sucks in a breath as though he’s going to say more but then he thinks better of it, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth instead. Keith has only known this boy for a few hours but it shocks him how frequently he’s seen pain in his expression, the hurt slipping on like a glove. On instinct Keith reaches for Lance’s hand and squeezes it. They sit in silence for a long while, fingers resting an inch apart on the floor, before Keith speaks again.

“Why were you checking on me?”

“Hunk thinks you hit your head. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t having seizures or anything, you know?” Lance moves his hands into his lap. “Shiro said I should give you space while we figure this out, but I need to know that you’re okay.”

“Were we close?”

“Yeah,” Lance laughs. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” The answer is loaded with implication but Keith doesn’t press him. “We should probably go to bed,” Lance says, standing up from the floor and offering Keith his hand. “Shiro wants to catch you up in the morning.”

Lance leads them back through the castle, providing Keith with a late-night crash course on the castle’s other inhabitants so he won’t be too overwhelmed tomorrow morning. Keith tries to commit all the names to memory: Hunk, Pidge, Allura, Coran. Then there are some mice, and a cow (Keith wonders what a space-cow looks like) named Kalternecker that they’d pick up at a shopping moon. The walk back to the room is short, and Keith is a little sad that the conversation has to end, even if his brain is fried a little. Living in the desert for months on end doesn’t leave much opportunity for human interaction.

Lance keys in the passcode and the doors slide open. Suddenly Keith feels like he’s intruding, like the room isn’t meant for his eyes. And really it’s not; all the memories in this room belong to a different version of him. Lance eyes the room wistfully from his position in the doorway, and Keith thinks that the room belongs more to him than it does to Keith. It belongs to anyone on the ship more than it does to Keith.

“I know you’ve been alone for a while so you’re not really used to this,” Lance begins, rubbing the back of his neck in a display of awkwardness, “but is it alright if I hug you? You don’t have to hug back.”

Keith nods. Lance winds his arms around Keith’s shoulders, hands splayed between his shoulder blades and chin resting in the crook of his neck. He is unbelievably warm. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Keith says as Lance pulls back, giving his shoulder one last squeeze before leaving the room. Keith makes quick work of changing into pyjamas and heads into the bathroom. There are two toothbrushes in a pot by the sink; he uses the red one. Then he climbs into bed, pulls the sheets up to his chin, and waits for sleep to claim him.

**

Keith’s sleep is light and fitful. He dreams of vast, rolling sands that open up and swallow him, and he falls and falls until he’s floating. He dreams of hands, hundreds of them, clutching at him and pulling him every which way until he grabs one and pulls, but it has no body attached to it and then someone starts to scream. He dreams of blue eyes.

When he wakes he’s covered in a thin layer of sweat, limbs tangled in the duvets. He sits up, and there’s a glass of water on the nightstand along with a sticky note with a smiley face drawn on it. Keith gulps it down, lukewarm but better than nothing.

He’s still exhausted but he can’t face going back to sleep and for all he knows it’s the morning anyway. He climbs out of bed and heads for the shower. It takes him a while to figure it out – all the buttons and dials are labelled with symbols he doesn’t recognise and there are at least a dozen jars with the same script. After a series of trial and error Keith manages to get water flowing, quickly dousing his body and hair with soap that has no scent.

In the wardrobe he finds a carbon copy of his outfit from yesterday and pulls it on. He debating whether to venture into the castle on his own, knowing that it’s likely he’ll get lost again, when there’s a knock at the door.

“Keith, are you up?” comes Shiro’s voice, soft but insistent.

“Yeah, hang on,” he calls back, searching for the release button on his door. Shiro is standing there with a helmet tucked under his arm, wearing the same armour as the woman in the hospital room but with black accents. He looks like a soldier and something in Keith’s stomach twinges. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere yet. First we’re going to breakfast so I can introduce you to the rest of the team.”

The walk in silence for the most part; every so often Shiro will point an identifying door or mark that will help Keith find his way around. When they reach the kitchen there are five people seated round an island of sorts, poking at plates of green goo. Three of them are wearing armour in varying colours. “It’s food,” Shiro gestures to the goo as he slides into the seat next to Lance. “It’s as bad as it looks, but you get used to it.”

Keith takes a seat next to a boy in yellow armour. “Hey, man,” he says, clapping Keith on the shoulder. “I’m Hunk. Good to meet you. Well, not meet you – I already know you, but you don’t know that I know you and you don’t think you know me so, uh –“

Keith cuts him off with a simple “Hey”, glad to know he’s not the only one who doesn’t know how to react to this whole situation, and Hunk smiles sheepishly.

Shiro takes it upon himself to introduce the others as Keith spoons goo into his mouth. The texture is like curdled milk; Keith tries to hide his disgust as he forces down the first bite but the person next to Hunk shoots him a sympathetic look.

“That’s Pidge in the green. And that’s Princess Allura; next to her is Coran. They’re from the planet Altea.” Keith tries to look surprised at learning he’s in the company of aliens as Shiro shoots him a sideways glance, but Lance had told him this last night. “And our last paladin is Lance.” The boy in question winks at him before turning back to his goo.

“Paladins of what?”

“Voltron,” Pidge finishes. “We fly these big ships shaped like lions that join together to make a robot person that fights evil.”

“Your lion was badly damaged in our last battle,” Allura says. “Both you and your lion were captured and held aboard a Galra ship. And somewhere along the way your memory was compromised. You said the last thing you remember was chasing an energy source in the desert. That energy was the first lion, and it brought you all here.”

Keith nods, not quite meeting her eyes. He’s not sure whether she’s expecting a reply, whether he should look surprised or shocked or _any_ kind of emotion really, anything more than the neutrality currently occupying his features. Every pair of eyes at the table watch except for one.

“It’s okay to feel scared or overwhelmed Keith,” Shiro says. “But we thought you should know what’s happening.”

Keith nods again. He had a thousand questions last night and every single one of them has managed to slip his mind. For now, he settles on the immediate. “Are you guys going somewhere?”

“We have to go down to a planet nearby to collect resources; we won’t be gone long.” Shiro’s face tightens. “Lance has volunteered to stay on the ship with you. Unless you’d prefer someone else to stay.”

Keith shakes his head. “I’m okay with Lance.”

Shiro nods. “Okay. Call us if you need anything; we can be back on the ship in a few tics.” The other paladins gather their helmets and exit the kitchen.

Lance salutes as they pass, craning his neck to make sure they're out of earshot before turning to Keith. “Looks like it’s just you and me, pal.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this fic for a while now and finally polished up the first chapter! I don't plan on having a set update schedule because of uni work but I'll try not to take unbearably long :) feedback is always appreciated and thanks for reading!!!


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